'Man of Steel': Zack Snyder defends Superman's "collateral damage"

The third act of the reboot sees the city of Metropolis devastated as Henry Cavill's Superman fights General Zod (Michael Shannon), seemingly oblivious to the escalating body count which has been estimated at 129,000 by an analyst quoted on Buzzfeed.

Asked by The Japan Times about the controversy that the sequence has stirred amongst fans, Snyder explained: "I wanted the movie to have a mythological feeling.

"In ancient mythology, mass deaths are used to symbolise disasters. In other countries like Greece and Japan, myths were recounted through the generations, partly to answer unanswerable questions about death and violence.

"In America, we don't have that legacy of ancient mythology. Superman is probably the closest we get. It's a way of recounting the myth."